SSG: You were a student at Brasenose College, Oxford. That’s very clever.

Mylo: I went to my local high school on the Isle of Skye, and then went on a scholarship to a big school in Edinburgh. I did six Highers in the first year there and then five SYSs (Scottish A-levels), which were chemistry and four doses of maths. I found myself in a small group of hardcore maths geeks, most of whom were going to Oxbridge. It was a bit like Alan Bennett’s History Boys, minus the homosexuality.

I’ve never been any good at forward planning. I left school with no university place. I wanted to lay bricks in Australia, but I was too young. My 17th birthday was during my final school exams, so I couldn't get a visa. I started at Edinburgh Uni instead. They put me straight into second-year maths lectures. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I went out a lot and lived in chaos. [He lasted a year.]

I then applied to study maths and philosophy at Oxford and submitted an open application, which means you’re randomly allocated a college. I didn’t think my interview had gone well and I

was surprised to get a place. I ended up at Brasenose. I underestimated the extent to which the colleges have their own personality. I suspect I would have been better off somewhere else. Brasenose is quite conservative, big on rowing and rugby – neither of which I did. Its most famous ex-student is old gammon-face himself, David Cameron.

My maths tutor was very understanding when I decided I’d had enough of maths and wanted to do psychology instead.

SSG: How did Oxford compare to Edinburgh?

Mylo: I had two or occasionally three essays a week, as opposed to the one or two a term I was used to in Edinburgh. The accommodation story probably wasn’t that different to any other uni, though. In the first year, I was in a hellish concrete room hidden away behind the old buildings in Brasenose. In the second and third years, I shared houses away from college. The Oxbridge focus on sports and traditions almost passed me by – although I played for the football team. I also played the drums in a production of Cabaret, the musical. I was never in the college bar.

SSG: How focused were you |on your studies?

Mylo: Only to the extent that I was hopeless at getting involved in other things. I decided I couldn’t afford to join the Oxford Union. I didn’t even do student newspaper stuff, which I massively regretted later when I was trying to get jobs in journalism.

I suffered mild hearing loss from a viral infection just before arriving at Oxford, so, on my doctor’s advice, I stayed away from music. I didn’t get into production or DJing until later. I didn’t really have goals. I assumed I would end up a mildly depressed academic.

SSG: You also did a PhD in Philosophy, tell us about that

Mylo: I only did one year. I’m still officially on a leave of absence from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Being in LA was great, if quite surreal. I spent most of my time in the car listening to the Eagles. I was only there long enough to get to know the superficialities of the city, and a vague sense of the suppurating evil that lies beneath.

SSG: What did you miss most about home?

Mylo: I was living out of a backpack from the age of 15, so I never accumulated some of the junk I would have needed to get into music – like an Atari computer and an Akai sampler. I didn’t get any music gear until I was about 23.

I’ve always found Americans to be really odd. I feel much more at home in Europe. And I missed the dreary misery of Britain. Also there was quite a dark political shift going on in the US at that time. Bush Jr “won” the election a couple of months after I got there. I was shocked that some of my classmates intended to vote for him. They were educated, but they were Christians – which apparently equates to an obligation to vote for the “god-fearing Republican party”

I don’t think that I could have voluntarily lived there through the last administration, looking at everything they did.

SSG: How was the whole uni experience for you?

Mylo: It was definitely good. I got interested in my subject and found it really addictive. And I was probably less of a screw-up when I left than when I started. Uni functions as a breathing space between horrifically awkward teenage years and the rest of your life.

If I had to do it again, there’s no way that I would consider not going to uni. I ended up doing something unrelated to my subject, but I don’t think that I would have had the confidence to do music at all if I hadn’t been to uni.

SSG: How did you move into music?

Mylo: When I left UCLA in 2001, I moved to Glasgow because my old friends and my brother were there. It’s a brilliant place to live, and cheap. I got work as a journalist at BBC Scotland, and bought an iMac with my first pay cheque.

It was a great time to get into electronic music. After the excessive amounts of bad house music over the millennium, there was a crash and a rebirth, with what became known as electroclash. But my favourite albums from around that time weren’t at all that sound. I was into The Avalanches’ Since I Left You and Röyksopp’s first album.

I don’t think that my studies fed into my music – although I did use a few slightly freaky American speech samples in my first record, which was probably triggered by my experiences in the US.

SSG: What’s on the horizon?

Mylo: I’m looking forward to Bestival [in September]. Rob da Bank [the man behind Bestival] is a genius at throwing parties .And it looks like I’m going back to Japan for Fuji Rock, where I haven't been since 2005.And I hope to finally get an album or maybe a double album out later in the year.

SSG: If you could offer your 17-year-old self some advice, what would it be?